I had a good time this year, cheers to all the Bartowelers and Ratebeerians that crossed my path, and the many brewers who chatted with me esp. Perry at Scotch Irish, much appreciated.
Highlights for me:
- Some new beers!
The Gingers Ale and Vanilla Porter from SI were neat to try (Personally I found the Gingers easier to drink),
Great Lakes' Devils Pale Ale was not bad and hopefully a sign of things to come,
Church Keys Purple Loostrife Mead (sp?) was quite nice as well - very nice balance to it.
Trafalgar Korruptor – another high octane experiment from Trafalgar that was not bad, perhaps better suited to a cold winter night than a hot summer afternoon but not bad.
Ste. Andre East India Pale Ale – Exceptional. Lots of hops, and quite possibly the beer of the festival for me.
- Returning treats:
Black Oak Summer Saison was in fine shape, and slightly different from last go round. I highly recommend a pint or three of this on a patio somewhere.
Actually remembered to buy some McAuslan beer mustard this year instead of just talking about it!
- Sunday was a lot more relaxed than Friday, at least at the beginning. I like that the Carlsberg thing was outside the walls and away from the rest of the booths as it was HUGE and made better use of the space there.
- Seems like everyone is getting bigger/more booths – Lots of micros had two booths this year. Hopefully that proved a successful strategy.
- Cheap water. Seems they finally listened and offered up cheap bottled water as well as allowing you to bring some in. I actually remembered to bring some of my own this year but this is a definite plus for the fest as a whole.
- Did food seem a little bit more expensive this year or am I just cheap? ok so, I’m cheap but was it also more expensive? :LOL: My $5 burger at Hero was tasty and probably one of the better bargains there. Will have to check them out in future since there is a place across the street from my work!.
- Did anyone try the big BBQ place at the front? I had already eaten by the time i discovered it. Smelled good.
As a whole it seemed bigger and busier, which is a turn off for some, but I didn’t mind it much. There were huge lines for tokens on Sunday but not really at the breweries. Strange.
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We have a trivia question in order to register to prevent bots. If you have any issues with answering, contact us at cass@bartowel.com for help.
Introducing Light Mode! If you would like a Bar Towel social experience that isn't the traditional blue, you can now select Light Mode. Go to the User Control Panel and then Board Preferences, and select "Day Drinking" (Light Mode) from the My Board Style drop-down menu. You can always switch back to "Night Drinking" (Dark Mode). Enjoy!